Last year Motorola released G successor Moto G 2nd Gen with superb specifications and the device is a huge hit in the mid-range smartphone market. This year 2015 the company is back with Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen Android smartphone. The device sports a few enhancements like water-resistant, long-lasting battery over the previous version of the model.
Today I’m reviewing the best mid-range flagship smartphone for the budget oriented people. Meet the Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen.
Must Read: Motorola Moto G 2nd Generation Review
Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen Review: Build Quality & Features
The brand new version of 2015 Moto G 3rd Gen comes with 5-inch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with 1.4 GHz quad-core CPU and Adreno 306 with 400MHz GPU and a 2470mAh battery. The phone supports dual SIM and the primary SIM card is normal SIM and secondary 4G LTE supported. Like in the previous version the phone has dedicated options for managing the SIM cards. You can choose between the two cards and make them default for calls, 3G or 4G data.
The display size is same for both 2nd and 3rd Gen Moto G variants. The display is pretty good and crisp even in daylight conditions. The design of the device is very simple and the back of the device has a premium look. The top of the display houses the proximity sensors and the front facing camera. The phone has a power button and volume keys on the right side. The 3.5mm audio jack is placed on the top and the micro USB slot, microphone at the bottom.
The camera has some image improving quality features like Dynamic Correlated Colour Temperature (CCT) and dual LED flash to adjust for natural looking image capturing even in low light conditions. The flash performance is and it is quite handy when taking photos in the dark. The interface of the camera is good and easy to adjust settings. The phone also has a very decent set of navigation options like GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, with Google Maps. On the connectivity side, it has Bluetooth v4.0, 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and WiFi Hotspot.
The phone comes in two variants, 8GB and 16GB models. Both models are expandable up to 32GB via an external microSD card. If you are struggling with low internal memory, you can migrate installed apps to external micro SD card using apps like Apps2SD.
Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen Review: Performance
The Moto G 3rd Gen 2015 runs the latest version of Android Lollipop 5.11 out of the box, luckily the company offering Android OS free from bloatware. Performance has never been an issue on the Moto G 3rd Gen, the powerful processor with 1GB RAM which delivers a never stopping great performance.
Motorola has improved the Camera quality on Moto G 3rd Gen 13MP from 8MP on the second generation. The second gen sported a 2MP front, whereas the 3rd Gen comes with 5MP front camera for video calling and selfies. The phone can record videos in 1920 x 1080, 30 fps, which is a decent upgrade to the previous device model. Overall, the display is great for multimedia use and also gaming. The speaker performance of the device was also good for music lovers.
When we talk about waterproof hardware, there is a standard to measure the quality. The Moto G 3rd Gen is an IPX7-rated waterproof Android smartphone. The IPX7 rating means the device puddle, stream and splash rated. The device can protect against water immersion for 30 minutes at a depth of 1 meter.
The call quality on the device was very good and we never had any issues with call drops. We tested the battery with heavy usage and on an average we got around 18 hours and 32 minutes of battery life, which is an above average performance.
For gaming the device is a good example for running high-end graphic rich games, I played games like Real Racing 3, Asphalt 8 Airborne, Plant vs Zombies 2. The 5-inch Display is too good for gaming. The touch response is also very buttery smooth. Overall, we would say this is one of the best displays in this price point.
Verdict
So is the Moto G 3rd Gen value for money? Certainly yes! Priced at $179.99. This device is best in the mid-range category. The build quality is good, performance is top notch comparing with the hardware and premium quality touch. We are hoping it will be this year’s mid-range trendsetter.